App Review: Stack

We’ve all been in situations where we just need a good game to kill time in highly boring situations. So Gareth (Online Editor for #GNTECH) and I are sitting at the Chinese Embassy in Dubai and we had a 100 people to go before it’s our turn. As techies do, we’re sitting and buzzing through our phones when G looks up at me and asks “Have you played this game called Stack?”. I hadn’t, so we download the game.

A title created by Ketchapp and KCHLab, Stack is pretty simple and involves you trying to stack blocks one over another to create a sort of tower. The trick of the game is that once you click Play, one block slides over the other and you must tap to freeze it in place. Continuous blocks stacked perfectly over each other are rewarded with a growth on base size after 10 blocks. But if your block isn’t perfectly stacked, the excess bit hanging out gets hacked off.

Pieces get hacked off when the blocks aren’t in line

Gain growth in block size for lining up all the blocks

The beauty of Stack lies in its simplicity. Both Gary and I started playing purely out of boredom and the next thing you know, our three-hour wait at the embassy has turned into an intense competition that actually required us to stop, simply to take a break and rest our thumbs. The game is aesthetically very neat and clean with pristine edges in the blocks and great attention given to insignificant but important details. For example, when a bit off the block gets hacked off it doesn’t just disappear into thin air; it actually rolls down the tower or even lands below if there is a sort of ledge below. The colours in the game are vivid and somehow contain a very positive vibe. There are also collectible gems you can pick up during gameplay that can be used to buy stacks of various designs such as Woven, Sheet and Retro.

For those who don’t want to wait, patterns can also be bought via in-app purchase.

Overall, Stack’s simplicity and addictive patterns create the perfect game to pass your time, whether it’s in line at an embassy, on a train, or even if you’re just bored at the office.

Stack is free to download on both iOS and Android. Try it and let us know what you think. Gary’s right now on 76 and I’m on 75. What about you?